After All These Years, Brother
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: "I thought you'd be enthusiastic after all these years, brother." Rodolphus's voice was a low, harsh hiss, a good deal sharper and colder than Rabastan remembered. "Haven't you missed me?" Written for First Aid, for Camp Potter.


Author's Notes: Written for the first First Aid assignment for Camp Potter – _write an angst fic with the prompts "tremble", "in the shadows" and "fragile"._

Warnings: Incest (of course), sex and dubious consent

)O(

The bed that Rabastan was given when he was freed from Azkaban felt fit for a prince after thirteen years of sleeping on hard planks and dirt floors. He would have gladly lain in it forever, relishing the feeling of soft cloth against his roughened skin, enjoying the way the pillow gave beneath his head or the blankets provided him with warmth he had thought he would never feel again. He could have slept there forever.

But he wasn't allowed to sleep forever. It could not have been more than a week after the escape from Azkaban that Rabastan woke and saw a dark, emaciated figure standing in his doorway.

He sat upright so fast that the blood rushed from his head, and he shrunk back into the shadows as he struggled to draw breath and keep his vision clear, for the figure he was seeing looked like a spectre of death, and he could _not_ die, not when he was so newly freed…

But then the figure stepped forward so the light of the full, bright moon illuminated his face, and Rabastan heaved a sigh of relief.

"Rodolphus."

His brother looked terrible, sick and wasted and destroyed, but still unmistakably _himself_. Tall and broad in the shoulders, and with a certain beauty around him, even skeletal as he was.

"Rabastan," he replied quietly. "It's been…"

His voice cracked and he bowed his head. Rabastan thought he saw a shimmer of a tear beneath his eye. "It's been too long."

Rabastan shifted forward in the bed and held out his arms, and Rodolphus was in them in an instant, his face buried against Rabastan's neck and his hands scrabbling at his back and sides and arms through the thin shirt he had been given to wear upon his arrival at Malfoy Manor, and had not taken off since.

"You're _alive_," Rodolphus murmured, nearly to himself. "You're _alive, you're alive, you're alive._"

Rabastan nodded, his own hands knotting in his brother's tangled hair and tears coming to his eyes. "I've missed you so much."

"Mm…" Rodolphus pulled back his head back to look Rabastan in the eye, then caught his lips with his and pressed a rough, burning kiss to them. Rabastan groaned softly against his brother's mouth and felt a little shiver run through him – something else he never thought he'd feel again.

Then Rodolphus was on top of him, holding him down to the bed. Their chests pressed together – both too thin – and Rodolphus had one hand on Rabastan's shoulder and the other on his hip. Rabastan whimpered as his brother held him down against the bed – as if he'd ever try to escape; as if he'd have the slightest chance if he did try. Rodolphus's fingers were sharp and they dug painfully into his thin shoulders. Rabastan let out a small whine and pulled away slightly.

"I thought you'd be enthusiastic after all these years, _brother_." Rodolphus's voice was a low, harsh hiss, a good deal sharper and colder than Rabastan remembered. "Haven't you missed me?"

"I have, dreadfully so." Every word was a strain and Rabastan wheezed between each one, partially from the pressure on his lungs as Rodolphus lay on top of him, and partially because it had been so long since he had said more than a single word to anyone. "I- thought of you often – I- oh!" He winced when Rodolphus's hand slid down beneath his trousers and his fingers wrapped tightly around his cock. "I- I–"

"Then show me." Rodolphus pulled, too hard. Rabastan whimpered in pain more than in pleasure.

"That _hurts_, Rod!"

Rodolphus stilled his hand immediately, his lips turning down into a frown that looked exaggerated and daemonic on his face, hollow as a skull. "Poor Rab. Didn't mean to hurt you…" He traced Rabastan's length with a fingertip, his ragged nail catching the skin and making Rabastan jolt and tremble. "I just want you. I spent so much time thinking about you, in _there_…" He said _there_ with such horror that Rabastan shivered on his brother's behalf, though Azkaban had done nothing but numb him.

"But you're weak now, aren't you?" Rodolphus continued, sitting up slowly. He looked away, so Rabastan could only see his profile, thrown into sharp relief by the cold, clear moonlight. "You always were… _fragile_. But I never thought you'd be too fragile for _me_, Rab. For your _brother_."

"It's not that…" Rabastan pushed himself upright and caught at his brother's shoulders, for physical support as much as intimacy. "It's not- not that I'm too- I just…" He stumbled over his words and swallowed. He wanted to tell his brother that he wasn't ready tonight, that he thought he would break in half if Rodolphus tried to take him, that he wasn't sure he was able to feel pleasure yet, after all those years of being denied it. But Rodolphus looked at him again, and he looked so terribly lost and hurt that the protests died in Rabastan's throat.

"Be gentle, Rod," he murmured at last, and almost managed to smile at the look of relief on his brother's face.

)O(

_Fin_


End file.
